Explore "Moses: a Story of the Nile" by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
On the next day Pharaoh called a council / Of his mighty men, and before them laid / The message of the brethren: then Amorphel, / Keeper of the palace and nearest lord / Unto the king, arose, and bending low / Before the throne, craved leave to speak a word.
Amorphel was a crafty, treacherous man, / With oily lips well versed in flattery / And courtly speech, a supple reed ready / To bend before his royal master's lightest / Breath -- Pharaoh's willing tool. He said / "Gracious king, thou has been too lenient / With these slaves; light as their burdens are, they / Fret and chafe beneath them. They are idle / And the blood runs riot in their veins. Now / If thou would'st have these people dwell in peace, / Increase, I pray thee, their tasks and add unto / Their burdens; if they faint beneath their added / Tasks, they will have less time to plot sedition / And revolt."